Jeremiah 26:1-6
Second Sunday of End Times - 6 November 2016
Rev. John Derme
When you read the Old Testament of the Bible, you read many promises that the Lord spoke through his prophets over two thousand years ago. Most of those promises the Lord has since fulfilled. For example, last week we read the Lord's promise that he would make a new covenant with his people. He has fulfilled that promise by the forgiveness of sins that Jesus won for us and the Holy Spirit has delivered to us. There are a couple of the Old Testament promises that have not yet been fulfilled, though. The Lord promises that he will come again to judge the living and the dead. He promises that he will take us to be with him forever. We don't know how long it will be before the Lord fulfills these promises. Yet we do know that he will. And these promises that remain to be fulfilled still have meaning for our everyday lives.
Today's First Lesson, like last week's, is another promise that the Lord delivered to the people of Judah through the prophet Jeremiah. It had a specific fulfillment for them, which has happened already in the past, from our perspective. Yet this promise has meaning for us about how we live as we wait for Jesus to return at the last day to judge all people. The Lord promises, "I will relent… and I will judge."
The Lord spoke the words of our First Lesson to Jeremiah early in the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah. Jehoiakim's father was King Josiah, who had tried to lead a reformation to bring the people of Judah back to worshipping only the Lord. During Josiah's reign, Jeremiah had delivered a similar message. But now Josiah was dead and the Lord sent Jeremiah to deliver the message to the people under the new administration.
The Lord told Jeremiah to preach in the temple, where many people would hear what the Lord had him say. Some of the people in the temple may have been faithful believers. Unfortunately, most of them were people who thought that they could worship the Lord in the temple and worship other gods, in addition. After Jeremiah delivered this message, in the verses following the First Lesson, the priests and the false prophets in the temple seized him and tried to have him put to death. They didn't want to hear what the Lord had to say to them.
Jeremiah must have known that it was a distinct possibility that they would oppose him for his message. You can imagine how he may have been tempted not to go or to leave out some of the inflammatory language of his message. But the Lord sent him on his way. He told him to say everything and not to omit a word. So Jeremiah stood up and proclaimed the Lord's Word faithfully. The Lord wanted them to hear his Word and repent of their sins. He was planning to bring disaster on them because of the evil they had done. But if they would repent, he would relent and forgive them. But he also attached a warning to his words. If they would not listen, he would judge them.
His warning was that he would make Jerusalem like Shiloh. Shiloh was twenty miles north of Jerusalem. Before King David had conquered Jerusalem and before the temple had been built, the Lord's tabernacle was kept in Shiloh. At that time, the Israelites came up with the mistaken idea that the tabernacle was a good luck charm, and that the Lord would never let it be captured or destroyed. They even took the Ark of the Covenant out of the tabernacle and into battle with them. The Lord tried to show them how silly that was when he let their enemies capture the Ark of the Covenant.
The people of Judah in Jeremiah's time had the same silly idea about the temple. They thought that the Lord would never let the city be conquered or destroyed because the temple was there. It was their good luck charm. And as long as they performed all of the sacrifices in the temple, they thought they were keeping God happy. But the Lord told them through Jeremiah that he would make that place like Shiloh. The Lord's house was no longer in Shiloh, and if they wouldn't listen to his words, he would no longer dwell in Jerusalem, either. He would leave that city, and let it be destroyed.
You and I do not live in Old Testament Israel. The Lord no longer has a physical temple on earth. So several of the details of the Lord's message in today's First Lesson do not apply directly to us. Yet the way that the Lord speaks about his coming judgment is instructive for you and me, because a different judgment is coming our way, and the Lord wants us to be ready, as well. The Bible doesn't tell us that judgment is coming on our nation. It does tell us that judgment is coming on the whole world. As he planned to bring disaster on Judah in the Old Testament, so he plans to bring disaster on the earth sometime in the future.
Of course, God doesn't enjoy bringing disaster on anybody. He would rather relent, just as he wanted to do in the Old Testament. Yet he wants the people of the world to see how serious our sins are so that we repent of them. Those who do not repent and continue to live in their sins will face God's judgment.
We don't like to talk about judgment. We don't like to talk about sin. People don't like to hear that message. The world pressures Christians to keep quiet and even persecutes them for saying what the Lord says. But the Lord doesn't ask us to proclaim the parts of his Word that are politically correct. He wants us to proclaim it in the same way that he told Jeremiah to proclaim it: do not omit a word. That means we proclaim all of it. Even the unpopular parts. Even if we'll get hurt or killed for it. If we proclaim some of God's Word, and leave out the rest, we are sinning and we deserve to be judged.
That means that as a pastor and members of a congregation, that means that as individual Christians, we must proclaim God's law to our world. It also means that we need to call each other to repent for our sins. It means that we need to hear and proclaim God's law to ourselves. We examine our own lives and see how we have sinned against our Lord. And there is only one thing such an examination can show us. We all deserve God's judgment.
Today God reminds us of the disaster that is coming on the world, because he does not want us to suffer his judgment. As he warned the people of Judah, so he warns us, because he wants to save us from it. Repent. Confess your sins to him. Trust his mercy. The Lord saves us from disaster by working repentance in our hearts and forgiving our sins. We prepare for the coming judgment each day by repenting, trusting that he is our Savior, and showing our repentance in our lives. Turn away from your sins and serve him faithfully.
The Lord will save you from the disaster that is coming on the earth. The Lord will save you from suffering disaster forever in hell. In his mercy, God has relented from bringing disaster on you, because his Son Jesus suffered disaster in your place when he died on the cross to suffer for your sins. Because of Jesus, God will judge you to be not guilty of all your sins. He will clothe you in the holiness that Jesus earned with his perfect life, so that you can be with him forever in heaven.
It is amazing that the Lord wants so much and works so hard to save us. Why shouldn't he just judge us with the verdict we deserve? But the Lord loves all people. The Lord loves you. He does not want to bring disaster on anybody. The Lord has saved you from it. In everything he does, the Lord is showing his love. Even when he threatens judgment, he is working repentance in us, so that he can forgive us. And that is why he wants us to proclaim his law to the world, so that he can work repentance in others, as well. And with his promise of mercy, he is working trust in us and others who hear his Word. Because of what Jesus has done for us, the Lord will relent and not judge us who trust in him.